Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae (Complete)

Then he turned and walked with the crowd under the temple porch and into the great, dim room. He trembled and grasped his father’s hand in awe. For there in the soft light towered great Zeus. In embroidered robes of dull gold he sat high on his golden throne. His hands held his scepter and his messenger eagle. His great yellow curls almost touched the ceiling. He bent his divine face down, and his deep eyes glowed upon his people. Sweet smoke was curling upward, and the room rang with a hymn.

As Charmides gazed into the solemn face, a strange light quivered about it, and the boy’s heart shook with awe. The words of Homer sprang to his lips:

“Zeus bowed his head. The divine hair streamed back from the kindly brows, and great Olympos quaked.”

After the sacrifices were over there was time to wander again among the statues and to sit on the benches under the cool porches and watch the moving crowd and the glittering sun on the gold ornaments of the temple peaks. Then there was time to see again the strange sights of the fair in the plain. The next morning was noisier and gayer than anything Charmides had ever known. While it was still twilight his father hurried him down the hill and through the gates, on through the sacred enclosure to another gate. And all about them was a hurrying, noisy crowd. They stumbled up some steps and began to wait. As the light grew, Charmides saw all about him men and boys, sitting or standing, and all gaily talking. Below the crowd he saw a long, narrow stretch of ground. He clapped his hands. That was the ground Creon’s feet would run upon! Up and down both sides of the track went long tiers of stone seats. They were packed with people who were there to see Creon win. The seats curved around one narrow end of the course. But across the other end stood a wall with a gate. Menon pointed to a large white board hanging on the wall and said, “See! The list of athletes.”

Here were written names, and among them, “Creon, son of the Olympic winner Menon.” Charmides’ eyes glowed with pride.

Every eye was watching the gate. Soon the purple-clad judges entered. Some of them walked the whole length of the stadion and took their seats opposite the goal posts. Two or three waited at the starting line. There was a blast of a trumpet. Then a herald cried something about games for boys and about only Greeks of pure blood and about the blessing of Hermes of the race course.

Immediately there entered a crowd of boys, while the spectators sent up a rousing cheer. The lads gathered to cast lots for places. At last eight of them stepped out and stood at the starting line. Creon was not among them. A post with a little fluttering flag was between every two. The boys threw off their clothes and stood ready. One of the judges said to them:

“The eyes of the world are upon you. Your cities love an Olympic winner. From Olympos the gods look down upon you. For the glory of your cities, for the joy of your fathers, for your own good name, I exhort you to do your best.”

Then he gave the signal and the runners shot forward. Down the long course they went with twinkling legs. The spectators cheered, called their names, waved their chlamyses and himations. Their friends cried to the gods to help. Down they ran, two far ahead, others stringing out behind. Every runner’s eyes were on the marble goal post with its little statue of Victory. In a moment it was over, and Leotichides had first laid hand upon the post and was winner of the first heat.

Immediately eight other boys took their places at the starting line. Charmides snatched his father’s hand and held it tight, for Creon was one of them. Another signal and they were off, with Creon leading by a pace or two. So it was all the way, and he gave a glad shout as he touched the goal post.

Charmides heard men all about him say:

“A beautiful run!”

“How easily he steps!”

“We shall see him do something in the last heat.”

“Who is he?”

And when the herald announced the name of the winner, the benches buzzed with,

“Creon, Creon, son of Menon the Athenian.”

Four more groups were called and ran. Then the six winners stepped up to the line. This time the goal was the altar at the farther end of the stadion. A wave of excitement ran around the seats. Everybody leaned forward. The signal! Leotichides sprang a long pace ahead. Next came Creon, loping evenly. One boy stumbled and fell behind. The other three were running almost side by side. Menon was muttering between his teeth:

“Hermes, be his aid! Great Zeus look upon him! Herakles give him wind!”

Now they were near the goal, and Leotichides was still leading by a stride. Then Creon threw back his head and stretched out his legs and with ten great leaps he had touched the altar a good pace ahead. He had won the race.

The crowd went wild with shouting. Menon leaped over men’s heads and went running down the course calling for his son. But the guards caught him and forced him back upon the seats. Charmides sat down and wept for joy. And nobody saw him, for everybody was cheering and watching the victor.

One of the judges stepped out and gave a torch to Creon. The boy touched the flame to the pile on the altar. As the fire sprang up, he stretched his hands to the sky and cried,

“O blessed Hermes, Creon will not forget thy help.”

As he turned away the judge gave him a palm in sign of victory. The boy walked back down the course with the palm waving over his shoulder. His body was glistening, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes were burning with joy. He was looking up at the crowd, hoping to see his father and brother. And at every step men reached out a hand to him or called to him, until at last Menon’s own loving arms pulled him up upon the benches. Then there was such a noise that no one heard any one else, but everybody knew that everybody was happy. Men pushed their heads over other men’s shoulders, and boys peeped between their fathers’ legs to see the Olympic winner. And in that circle of faces Menon stood with his arms about Creon, laughing and crying. And Charmides clung to his brother’s hand. But at last Creon whispered to his father:

“I must go and make ready. I am entered for the pentathlon, also.”

Menon cried out in wonder.

“I kept that news for a surprise,” laughed Creon. “Good-by, little one,” he said to Charmides, and pushed through the crowd.

Menon sat down trembling. If his boy should win in the pentathlon also! That would be too great glory. It could not happen. He began to mutter a hundred prayers. Another race was called—the double race, twice around the course. But Menon did not stand to see it. He could think of nothing but his glorious son. After the race was another great shout. Some other boy was carrying a palm. Some other father was proud. Then followed wrestling, bout after bout, and cheering from the crowd. But Menon cared little for it all.

It was now near noon. The sun shone down scorchingly. A wind whirled dust up from the race course into people’s faces.

“My throat needs wetting,” cried a man.

He pulled off a little vase of wine that hung from his girdle and passed it to Menon, saying:

“I should be proud if the father of the victor would drink from my bottle.”

And Menon took it, smiling proudly. Then he himself opened a little cloth bag and drew out figs and nuts.

“Here is something to munch, lad,” he said to Charmides.

Other people, also, were eating and drinking. They walked about to visit their friends or sat down to rest. Menon’s neighbor sank upon his seat with a sigh.

“This is the first time I have sat down since sunrise,” he laughed.

Then the pentathlon was announced. Everyone leaped to his feet again. A group of boys stood ready behind a line. One of the judges was softening the ground with a pick. An umpire made a speech to the lads. Then, at a word, a boy took up the lead jumping weights. He swung his hands back and forth, swaying his graceful body with them. Then a backward jerk! He threw his weights behind him and leaped. The judges quickly measured and called the distance. Then another boy leaped, and another, and another—twenty or more. Last Creon took the weights and toed the line.

“Creon! Creon!” shouted the crowd: “The victor! Creon again!”

He swung and swayed and then sailed through the air.

“By Herakles!” shouted a man near Charmides. “He alights like a sea-gull.”

There went up a great roar from the benches even before the judges called the distance. For any one could see that he had passed the farthest mark. The first of the five games was over and Creon had won it.

Now the judges brought a discus. A boy took it and stepped behind the line. He fitted the lead plate into the crook of his hand. He swung it back and forth, bending his knees and turning his body. Then it flew into the air and down the course. Where it stopped rolling an umpire marked and called the distance.

“I like this game best of all,” said a man behind Charmides. “The whole body is in it. Every movement is graceful. See the curve of the back, the beautiful bend of the legs, the muscles working over the chest! The body moves to and fro as if to music.”

One after another the boys took their turn. But when Creon threw, Charmides cried out in sorrow, and Menon groaned. His disc fell short of the mark. He was third.

“It was gracefully done,” Charmides heard some one say, “but his arms are not so good as his legs. See the arms and chest of that Timon. No one can throw against him.”

After that a judge set up a shield in the middle of the course. Every boy snatched a spear from a pile on the ground and threw at the central boss of the shield. Again Creon was beaten. Phormio of Corinth, son of a famous warrior, won.

Then they paired off for wrestling. Creon and Eudorus of Aegina were together. Each boy poured oil into his hand from a little vase and rubbed the body of his antagonist to limber his muscles. Then he took fine sand from a box and dusted it over his skin for the oiled body might slip out of his arms in the wrestling match. Then, at a signal, the pairs of wrestlers faced each other.

Creon held his hands out ready, bent his knees, thrust forward his head, and stood waiting. Eudorus leaped to and fro around him trying to get a hold. At last he rushed at him. Creon caught him around the waist and hurled him to the ground. Charmides laughed and shouted and clapped his hands. That was one throw. There must be three. Eudorus was up immediately and was circling around and around again. Suddenly Creon leaped low and caught him by the leg and threw him. He had won two bouts out of three and stood victor without a throw.

Soon all the pairs had finished. The eight victors stood forth and cast lots for new partners. Again they wrestled. This time, also, Creon won. Then these four winners paired off and wrestled, and at the end Creon and Timon were left to try it together.

In the first bout the Spartan boy lifted Creon off the ground and threw him, back down. Then the men on the benches began shouting advice.

“Look out for his arms!”

“Don’t let him grapple you!”

“Feint, feint!”

Creon leaped to his feet. He began circling around Timon as Eudorus had circled around him. He dodged out from under Timon’s arms. He wriggled from between his hands. The benches rang with cheers and laughs.

“He is an eel,” cried one man.

Suddenly Creon ducked under Timon’s arms, caught him by his legs and tripped him. The two boys were even.

In the next bout Timon ran at Creon like a wild bull. He caught him around the waist in his strong arms to whirl him to the ground. But with a crook of his leg Creon tripped him and wriggled out of his arms before he fell.

Menon caught up Charmides and threw him to his shoulder laughing and stamping his feet.

“Do you see, lad?” he cried. “He has won two games. Only the race is left, and we know how he can run.”

And how he did run! He threw back his head and leaped out like a deer, skimming over the ground in long strides and leaving his dust to the others. He had the three games out of five and was winner of the pentathlon.

Then there was no holding the crowd. They poured down off the seats and ran to Creon. Some lifted him upon their shoulders and carried him out of the stadion, for this was the end of the games for that day. And those who could not come near Creon and his waving palms crowded around Menon. So they went, shouting, out of the gate and among the statues and on to the river. There they put Creon down, and his father and Charmides led him away to camp.

That was the happiest night of Charmides’ life. He heard his wonderful brother talk for hours of the life in the gymnasium. He heard new tales of Creon’s favorite god, Hermes. He heard of the women’s games that were held once a year at Olympia in honor of Hera. He heard a hundred new names of boys and cities, for there had been, athletes from every corner of Greece in training here. He held the victor’s palms in his own hands. He slept beside this double winner of Olympic crowns. He dreamed that Apollo and Hermes came hand in hand and gazed down at him and Creon as they lay sleeping and dropped a great garland over them both. It was twined of Olympic olive leaves and Apollo’s own laurel.

On the next day there were games for the men, like those the boys had played. On the day after that there were chariot races in a wide place outside the walls. Every night there was still the gay noise of the fair. But instead of going to see it, Charmides stretched himself under the trees on Mount Kronion and gazed up at the moon and dreamed.

Then came the last day, with its great procession again and its sacrifices at every altar. The proud victors walked with their palm leaves in their hands. In the temple of Zeus, under the eyes of the glowing god, the priests put the precious olive crowns upon the winners’ heads. They were made from sacred olive leaves. They were cut with a golden sickle from the very tree that godlike Herakles had brought out of the far north. That wreath it was which should be more dear than a chest of gold to Creon’s family and Creon’s city. That was the crown which poets should sing about. When the priest set the crown upon Creon’s head, Charmides thought he felt a god’s hands upon his own brow. Menon leaned upon a friend’s shoulder and burst into tears.

“I could die happy now,” he said. “I have done enough for Athens in giving her such a glorious son.”

As the three walked back to camp, Menon said:

“Who shall write your chorus of triumph, Creon? Already my messengers have reached Athens, and the dancers are chosen who shall lead you home. But the song is not yet made. It must be a glorious one!”

Then Charmides blushingly whispered,

“May I sing you something, father? Apollo helped me to make it.”

His father smiled down in surprise. “So that is why you have been lying so quiet under the trees these moonlit nights!” he said.

Charmides ran ahead and was sitting thrumming a lyre when his father and Creon came up. He struck a long, ringing chord and raised his clear voice in a dancing song:

 
When Creon, son of Menon, bore off the Olympic olive,
Mount Kronion shook with shouting of Hellas’ hosts assembled.
They praised his manly beauty, his grace and strength of body.
They praised his eyes’ alertness, the smoothness of his muscles.
They blessed his happy father and wished themselves his brothers.
Sweet rang the glorious praises in ears of Creon’s lovers.
But I, when upward gazing, beheld a sight more wondrous.
The gates of high Olympos were open wide and clanging,
Deserted ev’ry palace, the golden city empty.
And all the gods were gathered above Olympia’s race-course,
They smiled upon my Creon and gifts upon him showered.
From golden Aphrodite dropped half a hundred graces.
Athene made him skillful. Boon Hermes gave him litheness.
Fierce Ares added courage, Queen Hera happy marriage.
Diana’s blessed fingers into his soul shed quiet.
Lord Bacchus gave him friendship and graces of the banquet,
Poseidon luck in travel, and Zeus decreed him victor.
Apollo, smiling, watched him and saw his thousand blessings.
“Enough,” he said, “for Creon. I’ll bless the empty-handed."
He turned to where I trembled, and stepping downward crowned me.
“To thee my gift,” he whispered, “to sing thy brother’s glory.”
 

“Well done, little poet!” cried Menon.

“A happy man am I. One son is beloved by Hermes, the other by Apollo. Bring wax tablets, Glaucon, and write down the song. I will prepare a messenger to hurry with it to Athens.”

So it happened that a lame boy won a crown. And when Creon stepped ashore at Pirseus, and all Athens stood shouting his name, a chorus of boys came dancing toward him singing his brother’s song. Creon was led home wearing Zeus’ wreath upon his head, and Charmides with Apollo’s crown in his heart. [Illustration: A Coin of Alexander the Great. It shows Zeus sitting on his throne.]

HOW A CITY WAS LOST

Such was Olympia long ago. Every four years such games took place. Then the plain was crowded and busy and gay. Year after year new statues were set up, new gifts were brought, new buildings were made. Olympia was one of the richest places in the world. Its fame flew to every land. At every festival new people came to see its beauties. It was the meeting place of the world.

But meantime the bad fortune of Greece began. Her cities quarreled and fought among themselves. A king came down from the north and conquered her. After that the Romans sailed over from Italy and conquered her again. Often Roman emperors carried off some of her statues to make Rome beautiful. Shipload after shipload they took. The new country was filled with Greek statues. The old one was left almost empty. Later, after Christ was born, and the Romans and the Greeks had become Christian, the emperor said,

“It is not fitting for Christians to hold a festival in honor of a heathen god.” And he stopped the games. He took away the gold and silver gifts from the treasure houses. He carried away the gold and ivory statues. Where Phidias’ wonderful Zeus went nobody knows. Perhaps the gold was melted to make money. Olympia sat lonely and deserted by her river banks. Summer winds whirled dust under her porches. Rabbits made burrows in Zeus’ altar. Doors rusted off their hinges. Foxes made their dens in Hera’s temple. Men came now and then to melt up a bronze statue for swords or to haul away the stones of her temples for building. The Alpheios kept eating away its banks and cutting under statues and monuments. Many a beautiful thing crumbled and fell into the river and was rolled on down to the sea. Men sometimes found a bronze helmet or a marble head in the bed of the stream.

After a long time people came and lived among the ruins. On an old temple floor they built a little church. Men lived in the temple of Zeus, and women spun and gossiped where the golden statue had sat. In the temple of Hera people set up a wine press. Did they know that the little marble baby in the statue near them was the god of the vineyard and had taught men to make wine? Out of broken statues and columns and temple stones they built a wall around the little town to keep out their enemies. Sometimes when they found a bronze warrior or a marble god they must have made strange stories about it, for they had half forgotten those wonderful old Greeks. But the marble statues they put into a kiln to make lime to plaster their houses. The bronze ones they melted up for tools. Sometimes they found a piece of gold. They thought themselves lucky then and melted it over into money.

But an earthquake shook down the buildings and toppled over the statues. The columns and walls of the grand old temple of Zeus fell in a heap. The marble statues in its pediments dropped to the ground and broke. Victory fell from her high pillar and shattered into a hundred pieces. The roof of Hera’s temple fell in, and Hermes stood uncovered to the sky. Old Kronion rocked and sent a landslide down over the treasure houses. Kladeos rushed out of his course and poured sand over the sacred place.

That earthquake frightened the people away, and they left Olympia alone again. Hermes was still there, but he looked out upon ruins. Victory lay in a heap of fragments. Apollo was there, but broken and buried in earth with the other people of the pediments. Zeus and all the hundreds of heroes and athletes were gone. So it was for a while. Then a new race of people came and built another little town upon the earth-covered ruins. They little guessed what lay below their poor houses. But for some reason this town, also, died and left the ruins alone. Then dusty winds and flooding rivers began to cover up what was left. Kladeos piled up sand fifteen feet deep. Alpheios swung out of its banks and washed away the race-course for chariots. Under the rains and floods the sun-dried bricks of Hera’s walls melted again into clay and covered the floor. Again the earth quaked, and Hermes fell forward on his face, and little was left of the beautiful old Olympia. Grass and flowers crept in from the sides. Seeds blew in and shrubs and trees took the place of columns. Soon the flowers and the animals had Olympia to themselves. A few gray stones thrust up through the soil. So it was for hundreds of years. Greece was conquered by the men of Venice and then by the Turks. But Olympia, in its far corner, was forgotten and untouched except when a Turkish officer or farmer went there to dig a few stones out of the ground. And they knew nothing of the ancient gods and the ancient festival and the old story of the place, for they were foreigners and new people.

But about a hundred years ago Englishmen and Germans and Frenchmen began to visit Greece. They went to see, not her new Turkish houses or her Venetian castles or the strange dress of her new people, but her old ruins and the signs of her old glory. These men had read of Olympia in ancient Greek books and they knew what statues and buildings had once stood there. They wrote back to their friends things like this:

“I saw a piece of a huge column lying on top of the ground. It was seven feet across. It must have belonged to the temple of Zeus.”

“To-day I saw a long, low place in the ground where I think must have been the stadion in ancient days.”

At last, about thirty years ago, Ernst Curtius and several other Germans went there. They were men who had studied Greek history and Greek art and they planned to excavate Olympia.

“We will uncover the sacred enclosure again. Men shall see again the ancient temples and altars, the stadion, the statues.”

Germany had given them money for the work, and at last Greece allowed them to begin. In October they started their digging. Workmen up-rooted shrubs and dug away dirt. Excavators watched every spadeful. They were always measuring, making maps, taking notes. They found a few vases, terra cotta figures, pieces of bronze statues, swords and armor. They cleared off temple floors and were able to make out the plans of the old buildings. They found the empty pedestals of many statues. Yet they were disappointed. Olympia had been a beautiful place, a rich place. They were finding only the hints of these things. The beauty was gone. Of the three thousand statues that had been there should they not find one?

Then they uncovered the fallen statues of the pediments of Zeus’ temple. Thirty or more there were—Apollo, Zeus, heroes, women, centaurs, horses. Arms were gone, heads were broken, legs were lost. The excavators fitted together all the pieces and set the mended statues up side by side as they had been in the gable. They found, too, the carved marble slabs that showed the labors of Herakles. But even these were not the lovely things that people had hoped to see from Olympia. They were rather stiff and ungraceful. They had not been made by the greatest artists. In the temple of Hera one day men were digging in clay. Over all the rest of Olympia was only sand. The excavators wondered for a long time why this one spot should have clay. Where could it have come from? They read their old books over and over. They thought and studied. At last they said:

“The walls of the temple must have been made of sun-dried brick. In the old days they must have been covered with plaster. This and the roof kept them dry. But the plaster cracked off, and the roof fell in, and the rain and the floods turned the bricks back to clay again.”

Then one May morning, when the men were digging in the clay, a workman lifted off his spadeful of dirt, and white marble gleamed out. After that there was careful work, with all the excavators standing about to watch. What would it be? They thought over all the statues that the ancient books said had stood in Hera’s temple. Then were slowly uncovered, a smooth back, a carved shoulder, a curly head. A white statue of a young man lay face down in the gray clay. The legs were gone. The right arm was missing. From his left hung carved drapery. On his left shoulder lay a tiny marble hand.

“It is the Hermes of Praxiteles,” the excavators whispered among themselves.

In his day Praxiteles had been almost as famous as Phidias. The old Greek world had rung with his praises. Modern men had dreamed of what his statues must have been and had longed to see them. How did he shape the head? How did his bodies curve? What expression was on his faces? All these things they had wished to know. But not one of his statues had ever been found. Now here lay one before the very eyes of these excavators. They put out their hands and lovingly touched the polished marble skin. But what would they find when they lifted it?—Perhaps the nose would be gone, the face flattened by the fall, the ears broken, the beautiful marble chipped. They almost feared to lift it. But at last they did so.

When they saw the face, they were struck dumb by its beauty, and I think tears sprang into the eyes of some of them. No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles’ own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would love. It would make the name of Olympia famous again. The excavators were proud and happy. That old ruined temple seemed indeed a sacred place to them as they gazed upon perhaps the most beautiful statue in the world.

“Surely we shall find nothing else so perfect,” they said.

Yet they went on with the work. Before long Hermes’ right foot was found imbedded in the clay. Its sandal still shone with the gilding put on two thousand years before. Workmen were tearing down one of the houses of the little town that had been built on the ancient ruins. Every stone in it had some old story. Pieces of fluted columns, carved capitals, broken pedestals, blocks from the temple of Zeus—all were cemented together to make these walls. The workmen pulled and chipped and lifted out piece after piece. The excavators studied each scrap to see whether it was valuable. And at last they found a baby’s body. They carefully broke off the mortar. It was of creamy marble, beautifully carved. They carried it to Hermes. It fitted upon the drapery over his arm. On a rubbish heap outside the temple they had found a little marble head. They put it upon this baby’s shoulders. It was badly broken, but they could see that it belonged there. So after two thousand years Hermes again smiled into the eyes of the baby Dionysus.

Other things were found. The shattered Victory was uncovered. Carefully the excavators fitted the pieces together. But the wide wings could never be made again, and the head was ruined. Even so, the statue is a beautiful thing, with its thin drapery flying in the wind.

After five years the work was finished. Now again hundreds of visitors journey to Olympia every year. They see no gleaming roofs and high-lifted statues and joyful games. They walk among sad ruins. But they can tread the gymnasium floor where Creon and many another victor wrestled. They can enter the gate of the grass-grown stadion. They can see the fallen columns of the temple of Zeus. In the museum they can see the statues of its pediments and, at the end of the long hall, they see Victory stepping toward them. They can wander on the banks of the Kladeos and the Alpheios. They can climb Mount Kronion and see the whole little plain and imagine it gay with tents and moving people.